"KEEP SMILING AT TROUBLE": HACKETT, MARSALA, PEE WEE, BUD, BUSHKIN, CONDON, SHAPIRO, TOUGH (11.5.38)

This performance is both rare and familiar, famous and infamous, and you'll hear why. It comes from a jam session organized by Joe Marsala from the St. Regis Hotel in New York City which was broadcast to the BBC -- unheard at home. The eager announcer, jazz fan Alistair Cooke, is so eager to explain the new phenomenon of swing to the uninitiated that he explains -- to some, insufferably -- through most of the track. But if you have the kind of first-rate mind F. Scott Fitzgerald spoke of, and you can listen around the well-intentioned Mr. Cooke, you will hear some astonishing music from Bobby Hackett, cornet; Marty Marsala, trumpet; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet; Bud Freeman, tenor saxophone; Joe Bushkin, piano; Eddie Condon, guitar; Artie Shapiro, string bass; Dave Tough, drums. Source material from a Jazz Unlimited CD, GREAT SWING JAM SESSIONS. Presented by Michael Steinman for JAZZ LIVES (http://www.jazzlives.wordpress.com).

Added 6 May 2026